“I’m fine. You’re probably accustomed to people recognizing you. I’m not.”

“You get used to it, but you can’t let them say nasty stuff to you like that.” Gia ran her fingertips over a filmy blouse with a plunging neckline and a price tag with way too many numerals on it. “One day, I swear to God, a total stranger came up to me at the corner of Seventh and Fifty-fourth in New York and tells me I had visible panty lines in my Vogue layout. Can you flippin‘ believe that garbage?”

Gia shook out her dark tresses and flashed her mahogany eyes over the gold rims of her sunglasses. Lucy smiled at her friend. She simply loved the way Gia had just said “gar-bahjz” in that high-pitched squeak of hers. Lucy had been hanging out with this woman for the last few weeks and couldn’t remember a time when she’d had so much fun.

“So what did you say to him?”

Gia smiled, pushing up those world-famous lips into a sweet curl of naughtiness. “I told him, ‘Baby, I don’t wear no panties,’ and then I cross the street and he’s still back there, and I think maybe he was having a coronary or something.”

Lucy laughed, then leaned up to whisper in Gia’s ear, “You really don’t wear underwear?”

“Of course I do. Mama would kill me if I went out into the world without my privates covered. You?”

Lucy gasped. “Me? Of course I wear them! I just bought a bunch of new stuff the other day.”

Gia grabbed her elbow. “Good. Let’s get more. No such thing as too much lingerie.”

If she were brutally honest with herself, Lucy would have to admit she was going to all this trouble for Theo. She wanted to impress him. Make him proud of her. She wanted to show the world what they’d done.

She smoothed down the jersey fabric and ran her hands over her hips again. Not so bad. She’d lost enough girth that control-top panty hose actually did some controlling. And the size 16 was snug but not obscenely so. She supposed it fit perfectly.

Gia had been right about the dress. The open shawl-collar coatdress exposed the smooth skin of Lucy’s throat and upper chest and accentuated her curves. It made her look sleek and feminine. The dark gray-blue matched her eyes and provided a contrast to her pale skin that would look good on camera. The dress was worth every dime she paid for it, even if she only wore it once. Soon it would be too big. And soon it would be too hot in Miami for a dress like this, anyway.

But today was important. She deserved to look pretty today, right now, didn’t she? She didn’t have to wait until she was wearing a size 8 to dress like the beautiful professional babe she was, right?

Lucy smiled at her newfound boldness, brushing aside her shoulder-length hair to put in the small gold twist earrings. She slipped on her watch, seeing she’d have to have the band tightened soon.

She caught her reflection in the mirror just as she turned to go, and winked at herself. Gia had been right about the lingerie-even if nobody saw it, it didn’t mean it wasn’t having its desired effect

Because Lucy knew that beneath this dress was the most extravagant bra and panty set she’d ever owned- something so delicate and soft that it gave her goose bumps when she put it on. And just knowing what lay against her flesh made her stand a little taller. It gave her a blush Lancome could never duplicate.

She needed to stop by the office on the way to the TV studio, and during the ten-minute drive she thought about Theo and how he would react to seeing her dressed up like this. Would he hug her? Would he kiss her cheek? What would his mouth feel like on hers? That clean, sweet smile turning serious as he backed her against the wall, crushed her breasts against his chest, took her mouth-

Whoa. There wasn’t a cookie to be seen in that fantasy.

Lucy looked in the rearview mirror and was greeted by a guilty reflection. Was that really what all the preening was about today? Was she determined to have Theo see her in a different light?

She returned her attention to the road and sighed. Surely that would only be setting herself up for rejection. And she was too smart for that.

Lucy ran smack into Stephan Sherrod in the hallway outside her office.

“Ah, Lucy! Just the gal I wanted to see.”

“Stephan. You’re here early.” She looked at her watch to see it was not quite six thirty. “Will you be at the team meeting this afternoon?”

“Well, no. I have a late lunch, but I’m sure Maria and Barry can handle anything that comes up.”

For a split second Lucy let the insult sting her. Then she nodded, smiling at the thought of the freedom all that money would bring, how in about eight months she’d walk out the door of this place without so much as a good-bye, many of Stephan’s clients begging her to take them with her. “Of course, Stephan,” she said to him.

Ooooh, she couldn’t wait! First, she’d snag a few of the agency’s smaller but more fun clients. The yoga center. The private marina down in the Gables. The artsy clothing boutique in Boca Raton. After working with these people for over a year, she knew they sorely missed Sarah Thorns but were happy to put their businesses in Lucy’s hands. They didn’t trust Stephan-they made that perfectly clear. She’d use that to her advantage.

And after those clients jumped, there was no telling who would follow. She hoped it would be the teachers’ credit union and the quick-lube chain.

“Lucy?” Stephan’s voice interrupted her plotting. “I know you’re on your way to the studio, but do you have a minute? There’s something I wanted to run by you. I need to give you a quick heads-up.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Lucy knew that when Stephan said he wanted to run something by her, he was telling her to drop whatever she was doing and do something else. And when he said he wanted to give her a heads-up, that meant he’d done something stupid and he wanted her to clean up the mess.

She looked up slowly from her desk, prepared for the worst-because she couldn’t recall a time when Stephan had used both bad business metaphors in one sentence.

“I have just a minute. I can’t be late. We’re going on live at seven thirty.”

“Of course.” Stephan sat down in a chair and waited for her to do the same. He smiled at her.

“You’ve certainly spruced up the scenery around here lately, Lucy.”

She looked around her office. “I haven’t redecorated.”

Stephan let out one of his tight smug little laughs. “I’m talking about you. You’re fast becoming a real asset to this company.”

Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. This man’s loutishness knew no limits.

“I’m just saying that it’s a vast improvement-no pun intended. Get it? Vast?” He chortled again.

Lucy nodded, letting her eyes wander to the ostentatious Caran d’Ache fountain pen tucked into Stephen’s dress shirt pocket, thinking how satisfying it would feel to jam the eighteen-karat gold nub into his left eyeball, thereby causing his head to deflate.

The bastard. There she was, the person who’d landed the Palm Club account in the first place-the biggest in Sherrod amp; Thorns’s history. Lucy was the creative director of a team that had conceived a fun, fresh campaign that was going to forever change their agency’s reputation. She’d even sacrificed her body and pride for this account. And she was supposed to be walking out the door right that minute to make this man even richer than he was by getting on a scale in front of a live studio audience and tens of thousands of viewers-and he just informed her she hadn’t been an asset until she’d become thinner?

She stood up. She glared down at him. “Unless this is about business, it will have to wait.”

“Don’t be so sensitive. Loosen up. Sit down. I’ve got good news.”

“I really only have five minutes, tops.” Lucy’s blood boiled. She’d taken this job for one reason-Sarah Thorns. In Sarah, Lucy had seen a kindred spirit, a real mentor, someone who’d managed to remain a decent person while she’d made her way in the business world. This position had appealed to Lucy because it would allow her to keep a hand in a variety of projects. The pay was excellent, too. But from the beginning, the one downside of this job had been Stephan. Lucy had figured Sarah would serve as a buffer between them. And she had, until she went in for routine cosmetic surgery and died. Now there was no Sarah-just one weird-ass boss, who sat in front of Lucy, his face lit up with malevolent delight.